Process

I produced this triptych in response to the tension between queer kink, shame, and the need to be visible on my own terms. The images are self-portraits shot in my home studio. A single overhead ‘interrogation lamp’ is left visible in two of the images.

The body is presented as both subject and evidence.

Images

i. Interrogation: Posed under a strobe, gripping the harness around the neck. An expression somewhere between climax and recoil. Lengths of suspended tulle cut across the body and legs.

ii. Exposure: The rear of the body: arms raised, harness exposed, trousers down, haunches visible but distorted through the veil or eyes of the world.

iii. Integration: This image tightens in on the torso and throat, a diagonal veil of tulle cuts through the image. Shame released - euphoria.

The tulle acts as literal surface tension: a safety net and screen that obscures and exhibits. The harness and tattoos mark the body as sexual, deviant and openly queer; white socks undercut the kink with an ordinary vulnerability.

Battle comments on visibility as a site of conflict and kink as a path towards authenticity, still entangled with inherited shame and fear of judgement. The work is meant to ask what it means for a queer person to be desired, looked at and to survive that gaze without disappearing behind it.

Battle i,ii & iii

A triptych of self-portraits exploring the thin membrane between shame and desire in a queer body and kinky mind. A single overhead strobe left visible suggests interrogation and self-exploration: desires discussed by others, morality quietly questioned. Shrouded in black tulle, the figure moves from strained exposure to a posterior reveal, then into a more internal, accepting, almost abstracted state caught in a diagonal veil. Harness and tattoos declare deviance and sovereignty; socks and fragile skin insist on softer ordinariness. The tulle turns visibility into surface tension, a battlefield where shame, desire and self-recognition collide into euphoric, defiant acceptance.

My interpretation of the breif

Three self-portraits exploring the thin membrane between shame and desire in a queer body and a kinky mind. A single overhead strobe left visible represents interrogation and exploration of self: desires and actions discussed by others, morality quietly questioned. Shrouded in black tulle, the figure moves from strained exposure to a posterior reveal, and finally on to a more internal, accepting and almost abstracted state caught in a diagonal veil.

Harness and tattoos declare deviance & sovereignty; socks and fragile skin insist on a softer ordinariness. Tulle shrouds, holds, blurs and cuts across the flesh, turning visibility itself into surface tension: a battlefield where the atoms of shame, desire and self-recognition collide into an explosive & euphoric release of freedom resulting in self-assurance and acceptance in defiance of perceived societal norms.